Righteous Kvetching About an Algorithm

 

Every once in a while, one must simply allow oneself to gripe. As a dedicated curmudgeon, ‘once-in-a-while’ happens frequently.

Case in point is a current gripe with FaceBook or rather the ’bots at FB. I’ve been given (given? Ha! ) another 30-day suspension.

Another one, mind you. 

The more recent one about which this writer is kvetching, resulted from a three-word post in response to a post about a current bill awaiting a vote in the Senate, namely, HR1, the ‘For the People Act’, to expand and further secure the voting rights of Americans. There are many more bits of Biden’s agenda headed to the Senate floor, including one on gun control which will face lock-step republican recalcitrance.

The responding post in question read ‘Kill the filibuster!’; quick, simple, to the point and on we go to the next one. After about 5 minutes (time is elastic and relative when streaming down the black hole of one’s FaceBook wall), the proviso from the ‘bot announced that my account was suspended for 7 days because of a violation of community standards. What followed moments later, was a more detailed pronouncement asking if I disputed the finding. The confirmation of the ‘bot’s ruling came quick on the heels of my ephemeral protest. (funny, that...)

‘Kill the filibuster’ promoted violence, it was ruled by the algorithm.

Huh? WTF!? Over...

Did the algorithm assume that ‘filibuster’ was a person?

‘Kill the lights'. 'Kill the music'. 'Kill the engine'. Those all promote violence?

Right...

And to add injury to insult, the ‘bot ruled that since I had been a bad boy before this, the suspension would be for 30 days not 7.

The previous offense had resulted from using the word ‘pussy’. A Trumpian simpleton had whinged about something or other and I had advised him not to be such a pussy. It was advice. Snarky, sure but...

In my defense, I had tried to edit the post, replacing ‘pussy’ with ‘snowflake’ but was interrupted by the ‘bot’s ruling that such language was considered ‘bullying’.

‘Bot says; ‘30-day suspension’!  
Talk about ‘snowflakes’. Scurry to your safe place...

There are plenty of better things to pass the pandemic time then doom scrolling the FB wall, of course. Re-arranging my sock drawer (again) come to mind. However, to be stymied by a ‘bot and stifled by an algorithm which red-flags words out of context is something to righteously kvetch about, thus wasting more time.

 Thus, endeth the gripe.

Now, how about that drink?

 

 

 

Kill the Filibuster

 

Kill the filibuster.

It’s not a law. It’s not in the Constitution. It’s only a Senate rule and can be changed by a simple majority. VP Harris can make the scale-tipping vote as president of the Senate. 

We must keep at the fore-front of our minds that any legislation which might lean towards ‘progressive’ action (i.e. climate change, voter rights, minimum wage, etc) will be stymied by Mitch ‘the Bitch’ McConnell and the obstructionist GOP. The Dems must remove the filibuster as it is Mitch ‘the Grim Reaper’ McConnell’s most powerful tool as the Senate minority leader. It is his and the GOP’s veto power.

Kill the filibuster.

Should the GOP obstruct Biden’s agenda and the agenda of the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the GOP could then run in 2022 on the seeming failure of Dems to enact the change that Biden promised in his election.

Diabolical and inevitable

According to a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll, 76% of Americans are in favor of the COVID relief bill passed in the House. 61% of Americans polled say they want to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 would benefit more than 32 million Americans.

There are 253 bills in 43 states to restrict voting at this writing.

Robert Reich has stated that, “The filibuster was popularized in the Jim Crow era by Southerners who wanted to prevent the Northern majority from passing legislation in favor of civil rights for Black citizens.”

The ‘For the People Act’ (HR-1) would end gerrymandering, set up public financing of elections, expand early voting, enact automatic voter registration (AVR) and counter Citizens United. This must pass. 

Unless the filibuster is eliminated and HR-1 passed, the Democrats will continue to be legislated out of power by the GOP.

 

The Meghan Harry Kerfuffle

 

Here’s the thing. 

All the nugatory comments citing disinterest or exasperation, and taut expressions of aloof worldliness such as ‘The British royals are racist? Who knew? (insert eye-roll emoji) are beside the point.

What Meghan and Harry have revealed in their interview with Oprah is not just more social media celebrity news. It’s more than that.

(Full disclaimer: I don’t give a whit nor a shit nor a toss. After centuries of brutal colonialism expanding and retaining the British Empire, after the calamity of the UK leaving the European Union in ethnocentric fear of foreigners, to suddenly realize the Royals may be racist and chauvinistic is a bit disingenuous if not bone-headedly ignorant.)

The point that should be internalized is that, Harry, the son of Lady Di, sixth in the line of succession to the British throne, has expressed the painful truth in public, at long last: the Royal Family is a business, an extremely profitable business which has racism, ethnocentricity and class prejudice as the tenets of its business model.

Harry; Henry Charles Albert David. The Prince. The Duke of Sussex, has dissed the Royal Fam as hateful racists. (Nota bene; he gave a pass to the Royal Gram and Grandpa – just barely.)

This accusation of rank racism was not leveled by some left-wingnut anti-royal republican. (Ironic, that, eh, what?) This indictment came from within the House of Windsor, itself, or at least from the front portico. Sure, Harry and Meghan are building on the foundation set by his mother, Lady Di, but it has been a foundation largely ignored. 

Until now.

Is it any wonder that they waited until after they left ‘Old Blighty’ before dropping the bombshell?

 

 

Really? Potatohead? Earth calling GOP...

 

Potatohead?  Really?

This is the number one issue for Republicans during a pandemic, at the beginning stages of a new executive administration as crucial legislation regarding pandemic relief and voter suppression awaits House and Senate votes and following an armed, murderous insurrection?

Not the neo-fascist deification of Supremo Orange-o at the QPAC Conspiracy Seminar at the Orlando, Hyatt?

Nor the raging vaccination disaster master-minded by Governor Ron ‘Doofus’ DiSantis in the host state of Florida ?

Not the Golden Calf, Mexican-made effigy of the Former Guy at said White Nationalist convention?

Not the celebrity status of QAnon adepts, Marjorie Taylor-Greene and her pistol-packing side-kick, Lauren Opal Boebert? 

Not the gross and hideous display of poor taste and poor delivery exhibited by Cancun Ted? 

Not the vainglorious clamor of the attendees for the outright, specious and oft-repeated lies pronounced by the Chosen Orange One? Nor, indeed, the lies themselves which serve to undermine our Republic, the Constitution and the very concept of the Rule of Law?

Really?

Got nothing for any of that but the re-gendering of a plastic toy everyone had forgotten about until a feature-length cartoon series resurrected it gets your goat, does it?

It is good to know that the opposition party has its eye on the prize.

Who said irony is dead?

 

Stand Back & Stand By

 

According to testimony given by Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the order for the National Guard ‘to stand back and stand by’ on January 6^th, was from the Secretary of the Army, himself, the highest echelons of the maladministration of Pumpkin Boy.

The likelihood that one of his ignoramus underlings would dare to do anything but serve the wishes of the Orange Blob is preposterous. The thought that then-Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy would unilaterally jump unless told to jump is fantasy.

We know who gave the order for the National guard to be on hold for three hours while, Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, the brother of the disgraced Michael Flynn hemmed and hawed, citing ‘bad optics’ at the behest of a certain smug, spray-tanned arsehole.

If John LaCarre had ever been so desperate for plot line, (he was not.) to entertain such a tawdry, almost lewd story twist, he would have had to be main-lining Tide pods, drowning in alcohol and inhaling spray-paint in a writer’s block wasteland.

No one ever accused the Former Guy of being original.

Or crafty... But, he is predictable. He put the fix in and watched the swirl of chaos he’d unleashed – the nation be damned, the devil take the hind-most.

To the point, it would not take more than a bow-legged baby-step to get from (1.) the Secretary of the Army flubbing a call-up order for three hours to (2) the same or similar orders being ‘implied’ before the day and on the day with the Capitol Police and the DC Metro Cops.

Now, why weren’t the other federal law-enforcement agencies out in force?

Car 54, where are you?